Four Harvard professors and three alumni will help lead five Federal Reserve task forces examining the central bank’s approach to monetary policy, Fed Chair Kevin M. Warsh announced Thursday.
The 15 co-leaders appointed by Warsh — who graduated from Harvard Law School in 1995 and took classes at Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management — include four Harvard economics professors and three Harvard graduates who now teach at other universities. Eight other economists and business leaders will also serve.
The task forces will examine Fed communications, balance sheet policy, data, productivity and jobs, and inflation frameworks.
“The U.S. economy has changed significantly over the last generation, and never more so than right now,” Warsh wrote in a Thursday press release. “Each task force will carefully consider whether policymakers’ means and methods, analytical tools and policy approaches can be improved upon.”
Warsh, who became Fed chair in May, first announced the task forces at his inaugural press conference last month as part of a broader effort to scrutinize how the central bank operates across its core areas of monetary policy.
The Fed said the task forces will operate independently and “follow the evidence, provide candid feedback, and produce rigorous findings” for the Federal Open Market Committee, the central bank’s monetary policymaking body.
The review comes as the Fed’s political independence remains under scrutiny. During his confirmation hearing, Warsh faced fierce questioning from Senate Democrats about whether he would protect the central bank from pressure by the Trump administration. On June 29, the Supreme Court blocked President Donald Trump’s effort to fire Fed Governor Lisa D. Cook, allowing her to remain in her position.
The seven Harvard affiliates have backgrounds in academia, government, business, and central banking in the United States and abroad.
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Harvard Economics professors Karen E. Dynan, a former Treasury official under President Barack Obama, and Jeremy C. Stein, a former Fed governor, will join former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan to lead the balance sheet policy task force.
The group will review the costs, benefits, and institutional implications of the Fed’s roughly $6.7 trillion balance sheet.
Harvard Economics professor Raj Chetty ’00, one of the youngest professors in Harvard’s history to receive tenure, will co-head the data task force alongside former Walmart CEO Doug McMillon and University of Chicago professor Kevin Murphy.
The group will assess the “quality and timeliness” of the economic signals that inform Fed decisions.
Harvard Economics professor N. Gregory Mankiw and New York University professor Thomas J. Sargent, who earned his doctorate from Harvard in 1968, will lead the inflation frameworks task force alongside William R. White, former economic adviser at the Bank for International Settlements.
The group will review how the Fed understands and responds to the drivers of inflation.
University of Washington professor and former Treasury undersecretary Peter R. Fisher ’80 — who concentrated in History and later graduated from HLS — will help lead the communications task force, which will review how the Fed conveys policy deliberations and decisions amid uncertainty.
Former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King — a former Harvard visiting professor — and Arminio Fraga, the former president of the Central Bank of Brazil, will join Fisher.
Stanford economics professor Charles I. Jones ’89 — who graduated summa cum laude in Economics from the College — will work with Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen to lead the productivity and jobs task force.
The group will analyze the economic impact of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.
Fisher, Mankiw, and Stein wrote in statements to The Crimson that they were honored to serve but declined to comment, citing the task forces’ early stage. Dynan declined to comment, saying it was “the early days,” and referred The Crimson to the Fed’s press release. Chetty, Sargent, and Jones did not respond to requests for comment.
The Fed has not announced a timeline for the individual task forces, though Warsh said last month that he expected most, if not all, of the groups to conclude their work by the end of the year.
“I am honored that the best minds from a range of disciplines have agreed to work with us to sharpen our performance as an institution,” Warsh wrote. “The goal is straightforward: to ensure the Fed is best positioned to achieve our objectives in this consequential time.”
—Staff writer Uy B. Pham can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at ubp.88. Follow him on X @uybpham.
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